Heat the milk until scalding. Steep the tea in the hot milk.

Let the milk cool until lukewarm. Mix in the sugar, egg, lemon juice, orange juice, and butter until well blended.

Stir in the yeast. 

Add 2 1/2 c. of the flour, the salt, lemon zest, and orange zest, and beat together well.

Cover the bowl, place in a warm spot, and leave to rise for an hour.  

Add the raisins and knead into the bread.  

As you knead, add as much of the remaining flour as needed to make a smooth elastic dough.  

Form into a ball and place in a covered buttered bowl in a warm place to rise until it doubles in size.  

Punch the dough down. Divide the dough and form into 12 buns.

Place the buns in a greased pan with at least an inch in between each one.  

Cut a cross in the top of each bun. You can leave them as is and skip straight to glazing and baking right here or you can make the flour and sugar paste for a more prominent cross shape.

If using the paste for the cross: ix together the 1 cup of flour and 2 tbsp of sugar with water to form a thick paste. 

It should take about ½-3/4 cup of water, but only add 1-2 tbsp at a time until you get the right consistency. 

If you keep it a bit thinner, you can use a piping bag to pipe it into the cross. 

If it’s thicker, you can simply form “snakes” of the paste/dough and place them in the cross shapes of the buns. 

Brush the top of each bun with the beaten egg. If you like a sweeter bun, some people like to warm up/melt some apricot jam and thin it a bit with water in place of the egg glaze.

Let rise again until double in size.

Bake in a 375 degree F oven for about 20-25 minutes until golden brown.